Crusader Cruising Through T5, 2h Shield Thrower (Video included)

Hello guys, im here to bring my own version of the Blessed Shield build, wich ive been working on since the buff. This is not much different than other shield thrower builds, but this is my take on it, and how i play it / itemize it, probably one of the main difference to some of the great shield thrower builds people have posted is that im using a 2h weapon instead of the 1h flail!

im gonna list the abilities i use and why i use them. I will also talk about itemization, what items to get, how to reroll them and so on.

Abilities:
1Shield Glare - Zealous Glare
I picked this ability for the Wrath regen, wich is extremly needed with my build, its also a nice CC, combined with Akarats Champion - Rally it becomes an almost perma CC ability!

2Provoke - Charged Up
This is also a multipurpose ability, its the best wrath regen skill in our arsenal, it taunts enemies so they are gathered making Blessed Shield much more efficient, and ofc its a nice dps boost with pretty low CD.

3Akarat's Champion - Rally
This ability is amazing, lets you spam Provoke and Shield glare, provides a huge wrath regen increase and if u get in a tight situation it gives you an extra life!

4Phalanx - Bowmen
This your single target damage boost, this build (and crusader overall) is extremly lacking of any type of single target, so this is pretty much the best ability to help with that issue. Also if ppl are wondering Bodyguard rune is way worst than bowmen, not only because of the utlity factor of bowmens beeing ranged, but because of the simple fact Bowmen absolutly destroy Bodyguards in terms of damage. you can have 2 bodyguards up for 10seconds, every 30seconds dealing 280% weapon damage, so since there is 2 bodyguard its effectively 560% weapon damage, now lets take a look at bowmens, 4 bowmen up for 5 seconds, every 15seconds dealing 180% weapon damage, again since there is 4 of them its effectively 720% weapon damage, and the uptime of both of these runes are exactly the same, in 60 seconds u will have the bodyguards up 2 times for a total of 20seconds, the bowmens will be up 4 times also for a total of 20seconds, i rly think blizzard should buff the bodyguards, simply because they are melee and they have a longer cooldown making them imo worst for utlity / on demand burst.

5Justice - Hammer of pursuit
This is pretty obvious, the main purpose is to regen wrath but i took the Hammer of Pursuit rune just to help with the lack of single target damage. The good thing about justice is that its Holy damage wich will scale with holy damage we are getting from gear (more on that in the gear part)

6Blessed Shield - Shattered Throw
The monster, probably the highest damage skill the crusader have (if u have jakengbord), the potential ammount of ricochets is insane, up to 36 shield PER CAST (more on this in the gear part) making this ability a beast AOE ability, but EXTREMLY lacking in terms of single target dps, thats why i have Phalanxes and Hammer of Pursuit.

The gear:Stats to look for and why:Holy Damage:
This will boost our main ability wich is Blessed Shield - Shattered Throw, it will also boost the damage of Hammer of Pursuit, helping us further with our lack of single target damage.

Crit, Critdmg, no attack speed:
With this build u get easly resource starved, so casting Blessed Shield as little as possible for as big damage as possible is ur best option, u need to stack Crit Chance and Crit Damage but stay away from attack speed, it will do nothing but hurt your effective dps and just inflate your dps to a point that u cannot keep up with resources.

Cooldown Reduction:
This is the stat we are gonna stack instead of Attack speed, this stat is rly good all around for crusaders, not only it has a HUGE effect on Akarat's Champion cooldown, i also value Cooldown reduction as a resource generating stat, because it will lower the cooldown of Provoke and Shield Glare effectively giving you more resource gain. Believe it or not but this stat will also help us with a problem i mentioned before, our single target damage, with enough CDR u can have a rly good uptime on Phalanxes, helping your single target ALOT, also as i just said it will reduce the cooldown of Provoke giving you more single target damage.

Ability Damage:
So i would try to stack as much ability damage as you can, specially Blessed Shield damage, few spot to get it is Boots and Helm, i would never sacrifice Crit chance on helm for Blessed Shield damage unless u have a insane ammouont of crit without it (close to 60%). Some items can roll both if u get lucky

Gear to look for:Jekangbord (only must have item):
This is the bread and butter of this build, without this shield this build is not worth it. This shield will make you potentially shoot 36 shields with ONE cast, with the shattered rune everytime u hit a enemy with your shield it will break into 3 additional shields, the Jekangbord will make your shield ricochet 6 additional times ( if perfectly rolled) for a total of 9 ricochets, so 9*3 = 27 and the initial 9 hits making it 36 hits with one cast, if there is enough enemies around and the shields dont bug out wich they do sometimes.

Broken Crown:
If u get lucky enough to roll main stat, crit, atk speed + a random stat without enchanting it, broken crown can be a very good helmet, because u can potentially have Crit, atk speed, main stat AND Blessed Shield damage.

Andariel's Visage:
Not much to say about this beast, get one with Holy Damage, try to get as low fire damage taken as possible and roll the random affix into crit. If u r the luckiest guy on earth and happen to get the random affix as crit, reroll atk speed into Blessed Shield damage and u have one of the best helm u can possibly have, to get one Kadala is your friend

6 Piece Crusader set:
Here is for hoping right? i only have 2 piece my self, but im 100% sure that with our itemization including CDR, if we could get our hands on the 6 piece bonus this build would become absolutly crazy, with enough CDR u can get pretty close to perma Akarats Champion. The base CD is 90sec, the set removes 50% making it 45sec, and then u have to keep in mind that akarats champion it self lasts 20second, effectively making it only a 25sec cooldown WITHOUT any CDR, really really strong set!

Taskers And Theo:
Havent done much testing with these since i only got a terrible pair of them, but i can confirm that they work with Phalanx, making them RLY strong for single target damage wich is the reason we take them in the first place.

Stone of Jordan:
Not much to say about this, Holy damage + up to 30% elite damage? yes plz!

Reaper Wraps
Havent got a pair of these my self yet, but just by looking at them u know they were made for this build, good pair of bracers to get!

Harrington Waistguard
The bonus damage from the legendary affix is absolutly insane for higher torment, the best part is that it doesnt only work from chests, but also armor / weapon racks, bodies, and things on the ground like the broken floor tile and stuff like that. (you will see me use it on a pack in the video)

How to play this build:
When u start a fight u always want to lead with a Shield Glare to get wrath (unless full wrath), so try to hit as many mob as possible with your shield glare to get the max out of it, when u run out of Wrath, use provoke to get more Wrath again, basicly u rotate between these 2 cooldowns to get your wrath, if both happens to be on cooldown use a few Justice. About phalanxes, the way i use them is to clean up, and to do damage when im out of wrath using Justice, so everytime u running out of Wrath and both Provoke and shield glare are on CD pop ur phalanxes. Another way i utilize phalanx is when ive taken down a big pack of mobs and there is only a few mobs left with low hp, pop phalanx and let them clean it up. Against single targets and bosses there is not much to say, just keep spamming phalanx and provoke, when u have wrath use Blessed Shield when u dont use Justice, a good tactic is also leading single targets into groups, as soon as your shield start bouncing off other targets ur dps increases by a HUUGE ammount.

I dont know if this has been brought to your attention, however i feel it does need mentioning. You had stated initially that IAS was a waste for this build, however you listed broken crown as a possible helm due to IAS. Why not list the crafted helm, The Helm of Rule? It comes with +11% block chance, which directly effects the DPS of Blessed Shield. It cannot compare in any way to Andariels Visage, but at least worth an honorable mention. More so than Broken Crown.

i do play 2 hand and 1 hand BS since the patch non stop and i absolutely destroy t6; a few more tipps and hints (for 2 handed play):

get the bounty weapon (burst of wrath), it is amazing for this specc, it is a reapers wraps in disguise! also you NEED reapers.

provoke with "hit me" is way way way better than charged up

do not wear items like helm of rule or justice lantern, you will lose far too much dps, they can never compensate the raw stat loss! your shattered shields will not profit from block chance, making it not that uber desireable anyway - that doesn't mean block % is bad ofc.

15% block from the passive is absolutely fine to specc tough, towering shield is only good with a 1 hand specc when you have that extra free spot for a passive

ias is a so-so stat, it's not terrible but it's not good either, you better stack crit/critdmg first.

Although the spec looks very interesting and fun with all the shield bouncing around the time spent on killing Elites is jaw dropping slow; makes me wonder if you did not include a Rift fight on purpose since it could highlight the one big possible flaw in your setup? My current build allows me to do T4 while in a group, but solo I cannot take the beating since Provoke taunt's all them mobs and they just clobber you to death. Coupled with the fact that the Crusader has little abilities that allow you to escape (getting boxed in by wallet with some arcane beams means you're dead no matter what) I am a bit skeptic if someone posts a build that "Facerolls T4/T5".

I haven't found a nice build yet that would allow me to do T4/T5 in solo setup, the crusader is very strong in a group though so T4 is no issue. I really wonder what kind of setup is required (besides 6PC Crusader set) that will create a comfortable experience for T4/5/6 without taking ages to kill something; makes you wonder if Crusader was ever meant to be enjoyed in that regard, because so far I haven't found it yet (but that's personal of course).

(No offense meant to your build, I will be trying it out for sure, since I was lucky enougg to get a 6R Jankenbord ;-)

Although the spec looks very interesting and fun with all the shield bouncing around the time spent on killing Elites is jaw dropping slow; makes me wonder if you did not include a Rift fight on purpose since it could highlight the one big possible flaw in your setup? My current build allows me to do T4 while in a group, but solo I cannot take the beating since Provoke taunt's all them mobs and they just clobber you to death. Coupled with the fact that the Crusader has little abilities that allow you to escape (getting boxed in by wallet with some arcane beams means you're dead no matter what) I am a bit skeptic if someone posts a build that "Facerolls T4/T5".

I haven't found a nice build yet that would allow me to do T4/T5 in solo setup, the crusader is very strong in a group though so T4 is no issue. I really wonder what kind of setup is required (besides 6PC Crusader set) that will create a comfortable experience for T4/5/6 without taking ages to kill something; makes you wonder if Crusader was ever meant to be enjoyed in that regard, because so far I haven't found it yet (but that's personal of course).

(No offense meant to your build, I will be trying it out for sure, since I was lucky enougg to get a 6R Jankenbord ;-)

Killing elites jaw dropping slow? i have to strongly disagree, elites are EXACTLY where this build shines and i feel like u didnt watch the video I provoke enemies in T6 groups without having any survivability issues because of Life Per Wrath spent. I didnt post the rift guard fight because i cant post as long video's as i want, but like i said in the guide, single target damage is poor with this build and its nothing im trying to hide, i actually give options on how to deal with single target.